The impact of communication technology on interaction experience : religion, co-fabulated storytelling and community building among Maltese gamers

Abstract

This study outlines, through ethnographic fieldwork conducted among the Maltese gaming community, how changes in communication technology are impacting the formation/evolution of communities in Malta and how communication technology determines how members of communities of choice interact in the context of these technological developments. Interaction is explored in the context of experience, both personal and community based. There is the need for a reappraisal of how we understand the concept of community, particularly communities of choice, in the digital age. The study highlights how the co-fabulation of narratives aids community building and how technologies of communication have facilitated and enhanced this and how they help redress one of the motivators for co-fabulation: the transcendence of scale. The concept of ‘communities in hyperreality’ is presented as a theoretical framework which helps to understand these contemporary phenomena, particularly in terms of globalisation and internationalisation as mediated through local culture and context.